iDirectShop

Back in 2002, after carefully running the numbers and determining we could afford it, my wife and I bought a beautiful new 5 bed/3 bath 2700 sq. ft. house. But in the time since then, we’ve had two children, my wife changed to a lower paying career as a teacher, I have had no pay increases, and prices of everything have gone up. Now, and for about the last year, we have been living beyond our means and stealing from our nest egg just to make ends meet every month.

So we got the idea to move to a smaller and less costly house. You’d think this would be no problem except that the challenge for us is that where we live now, the schools are not so great and we need to get into a better school district. This means that even if we manage to get what we paid for our current house, we’d barely be able to afford little more than a cracker box in the better areas.

So after a few months of looking, we could no longer ignore the sad world of short sales, REO’s and foreclosures. We were pretty much ignoring them because we felt that even considering them would be preying on other people’s misfortune. But I guess it’s like thinking that if you don’t eat a steak you’ll save a cow. Foreclosures are not something that most Realtors talk much about, nor even seem very happy or proud to show. And rightly so.

The sad reality is that if we can save money, or get a house in a better area, then it might be worth considering. There are many drawbacks, such as banks sell them as is with no guarantees or disclosures. Anyway, I have found several web sites that specialize in foreclosure listings and information, so I have a lot to learn. I’ll add to this post or write a new one detailing the best sites and/or any pearls of wisdom I come up with.

       If you are using the internet, but you are still dialing it up with a modem, you are truly living in the past. There are still many areas of the country not served by broadband access, but that is changing rapidly.

When the internet became more widely used by the masses, dial-up access was all that was available for most home users like me, so although it was slow, I didn’t have anything to compare it to. Then in early 1998, my cable company announced they were going to have a demo at a local high school of a new internet access service they were going to offer.

Well, to say the least, I was blown away. Web sites just flew onto the screen. I signed up on the spot and I haven’t looked back since. Once or twice since then I have used somebody else’s computer to access the internet with a modem and found it to be excruciatingly painful.

My cable company at the time was AT&T, which later became Comcast. It’s great to have TV and internet coming into my house on the same cable. Comcast is also now offering voice/phone service.

Over the years, Comcast has constantly been increasing the speed of the service. It started out at about 1.5 mbps (about 5 times dial-up speed), now they have it up to 6 mbps. That’s not bad when you consider they have never increased the cost of the internet service. With typical DSL broadband service, if you want higher speed, you have to pay more. The other drawback of DSL is that some carriers require you to also pay for a voice line, even if you do not want voice service. Many people who opt to use cell phones as their main phone service may find this requirement quite unwelcome.

One of the only criticisms of cable broadband access I have heard is that if there are a lot of people in your area using the service, it will be slower. So far I have not found that to be true. I moved into my new house in a large development in 2002 and the area has been expanding rapidly. If anything, the service has gotten faster.

One of the cool things about broadband internet is that it’s always on. No connecting, no scratchy phone noises. You just open your browser or email and go. Another great thing that Comcast or any other provider won’t tell you is that if you hook up the right router(about $40), you can connect up to 255 computers and they can all be on the internet at the same time.

Typical dial-up is around $20, and cable is a little over double that, but the speed is way more than double. How much is your time worth? With all that Comcast is offering, signing up is a no brainer. When I signed up, all they offered me was the ability to split the installation fee over two months. Now installation is free because you do it and the first six months of service is less than half price. Also when I signed up, you had to buy your own modem, or rent it from them for an extra monthly fee. Now they give you a free modem and a wireless router. I think the router is a nice touch, and something they didn’t need to provide, but they do anyway. Every account includes online storage and the ability to host your own web site. At the moment they are also offering various cash back deals for high speed internet as well as for their digital cable and digital voice service.

I have been extremely pleased with Comcast High Speed Internet, and couldn’t imagine ever going back to using a modem. If I had to make any criticism of Comcast, it would be that they don’t seem to have any interest in rewarding customer loyalty. But then, how many companies really do that these days?

Go check out Comcast High Speed Internet.